n8 



The Albatrosses and Petrels 



blackish. It breeds in the Canaries and Madeira, nesting in holes in rocks near 

 the foot of the cliffs. Its cry is said to resemble that of a puppy. 



Stormy Petrels. Perhaps the most interesting of all the Petrels, or at least 

 those about which there clusters the most of poetry and superstition, are the 

 little Stormy Petrels (Procellaria}, which may be taken as the type of the sub- 

 family Procellariince. They are known at once by their small size, their bodies 

 being no larger than that of an English Sparrow, and their length not exceeding 

 six inches. The general color of the plumage is a sooty blackish, somewhat 

 paler or more sooty grayish below, set off by a conspicuously snow-white rump. 

 They are preeminently birds of the ocean, never approaching the land except 

 during the nesting season or when driven there by extraordinarily severe gales, 

 and as they are perhaps most frequently seen just before or during a storm, at- 

 tracted doubtless by the minute animals upon which they probably feed, then 



found at the surface of the sea, they have 

 come to be regarded with superstition by 

 sailors, and many a dire calamity has been 

 predicted on their presence. Sailors call 

 them "Mother Carey's Chickens"; "but 

 not, as might be imagined from such a 

 name, of any tender regard or feeling of 

 affection for the birds. Mother Carey is 

 supposed to be a kind of ocean witch, a 

 supernatural Mother Shipton, who rides the 

 blast, and who has for attendants and har- 

 bingers the little Dark-winged Petrels." 

 But on the other hand, by exhibiting their 

 wonderful power of endurance, they .may 

 stimulate to renewed exertion the weary, 

 storm-tossed mariners. A well-know r n 

 writer, after describing a tempestuous voy- 

 age, says, "It was some relief to the extreme monotony and misery of our situ- 

 ation, to watch the movements of these fairy-like beings as they danced among 

 the surging billows, running with fluttering wings in the hollow of the waves, and 

 hovering over their foaming crests with the lightness of summer butterflies." Of 

 the two species the true Stormy Petrel (P. pelagica} is found in the North 

 Atlantic, south to the Newfoundland Banks and the western coast of Africa. It 

 is apparently only a transient visitor to American waters, perhaps not breeding, 

 its principal nesting grounds being along the Atlantic coast of Europe, espe- 

 cially the Scilly Islands, the Orkneys, and Shetlands. It is gregarious during 

 the nesting season, which does not begin until June, and places its single white, 

 minutely speckled egg in rabbit or Puffin burrows, under a rock or heap of loose 

 stones, or even in ruined walls. The bird is a close sitter, remaining in its burrows 

 until dragged out, and when taken in the hand ejects a small quantity of strong- 

 smelling, amber-colored oil from the mouth. The other species known as the 

 Galapagos Stormy Petrel (P. tethys] is found in the vicinity of the islands of 



FIG. 35. Stormy Petrel, Procellaria 

 pelagica. 



